- IBM offers a Managed Technical Support and Lifecycle Maintenance service to help organizations reduce IT complexity and costs associated with maintaining aging assets through an operating expenditure model rather than capital expenditure.
- The service provides multivendor support, asset management including refresh, and acts as a single point of contact to simplify support. This allows IT staff to focus on innovation rather than day-to-day maintenance tasks.
- Adopting an "as-a-service" model through IBM's solution can help organizations better manage technologies and shift costs from capital to operating expenditures in a flexible way.
1. April 2016, IDC #US41016216
WHITE PAPER
Managed Technical Support and Lifecycle Maintenance
Sponsored by: IBM
Rob Brothers
April 2016
IDC OPINION
Time is truly money, and spending time on tasks that take away from innovation and driving new
business is not time well spent. IT needs better solutions to maximize time and capital expenditure
(capex) budgets as it is being tasked with developing and implementing better business processes and
new revenue streams through what IDC calls the 3rd Platform, which includes cloud-, mobile-, social-,
and analytics-based solutions. These new solutions need to ease capex constraints while easily
refreshing aging assets and automate the deployment and management process for a large number of
IT systems at once. IDC trend data from the past three years shows the amount of time and the
number of people IT organizations are devoting to:
Asset management and refresh
Monitoring, troubleshooting, and remediation
Provisioning, patching, and configuration
New service request administration and approval processing
Vendor and internal meetings
IDC has also seen IT budgets becoming capex constrained with IT and finance looking for more
predictable and flexible operating expenditure (opex) pricing models such as "as a service"-like
options. The platform-as-a-service and software-as-a-service market is an excellent example of opex
growth. IT software spend in this market reached 14% in 2014 and is expected to grow to more than
20% by 2019. IBM has a long history of not only generating solution and support options that can help
enterprises spend less time on day-to-day tasks but also providing flexible refresh and payment
options for the supported assets.
IN THIS WHITE PAPER
IDC shows how much of IT's time is spent on maintaining devices and planning asset lifecycle
refreshes, which can put a strain on capex budgets. IBM's solution looks to streamline and ease the
burden of these tasks for a vast majority of enterprise environments, and their solutions will keep IT's
focus on business objectives.
9. About IDC
International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory
services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications and consumer technology
markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community make fact-
based decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. More than 1,100 IDC analysts
provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in
over 110 countries worldwide. For 50 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients
achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology
media, research, and events company.
Global Headquarters
5 Speen Street
Framingham, MA 01701
USA
508.872.8200
Twitter: @IDC
idc-community.com
www.idc.com
Copyright Notice
External Publication of IDC Information and Data — Any IDC information that is to be used in advertising, press
releases, or promotional materials requires prior written approval from the appropriate IDC Vice President or
Country Manager. A draft of the proposed document should accompany any such request. IDC reserves the right
to deny approval of external usage for any reason.
Copyright 2016 IDC. Reproduction without written permission is completely forbidden.